


Fade to Silver

by DoreyG



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Soulmarks, complicated family relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28202019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: There’s a silver mark shaped like a lightning bolt on his wrist.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40
Collections: Writing Rainbow Silver





	Fade to Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



There’s a silver mark shaped like a lightning bolt on his wrist.

It’s been there ever since he was eleven years old, specifically ever since Harry went away to Hogwarts, but if anybody asks him if it’s come in yet he lies and says he must be a late bloomer. He knows that his mother is disappointed and his father is increasingly unimpressed, but it’s just safer that way.

He goes back and forth on whether he acknowledges it or not. He spent the ages between eleven and thirteen stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it in any way, barely even looking at his wrist because he knew what he’d see there. He spent age fourteen desperately pining after Harry, wishing in a faintly sickly way that he would break the habit of a lifetime and come sweeping in the door romantically at Christmas or Easter and take him away from this place. He spent age fifteen _furious_ about it, lashing out at anybody who even dared to mention Harry’s name… Right up until Harry saved him from the Dementors, and all that anger seemed rather petty all things considered. From that point onwards, sixteen and up, he’s veered between desperately trying to ignore it and pining after Harry in a faintly pathetic way.

It seems a sick joke that his soulmate is Harry Potter, _the_ Harry Potter. It’s basically the most inappropriate soulmate bond imaginable. Harry is a wizard, a man, his _cousin_. Any one of those things would probably be enough for his father to toss him out of the house on his ear, but all three? He’d be lucky to escape with just being thrown out, isn’t sure what else he’d be forced to suffer for something he simply can’t help.

Not that he’s tried very hard to help it, all things considered. He once thought that he hated Harry with all his heart, but now he thinks that that’s never been the case. At first he was cruel to Harry because it was what his parents had taught him and he desperately wanted to please them, and then it morphed into being cruel because it was the only reliable way to get Harry to pay attention to him. It isn’t hate that he feels for the guy now but sickly, overwhelming love. Love that you could choke on, love that makes him want to tear his hair out at the root and scream at the moon because maybe _that_ would provide some fucking relief.

Nothing else has, nothing else in six years of desperately longing for Harry in one way or another and desperately wanting _something_ to be different. He’s spent what seems like days over the years staring across the dining table at Harry’s drawn face, sitting close to Harry but never once touching, pressing his ear against the wall between their bedrooms in the vain hope that he’ll hear just a little more of Harry’s voice. He walked in on Harry once, his hand wrapped tightly around his cock, and had to walk out again in the next moment; it was like looking at the sun, if he’d stared for too long it would’ve blinded him.

One of the most messed up things is that he’s not even sure if Harry’s aware that they’re soulmates. If he has a representation of his soul on his wrist and is just politely failing to talk about it, or if he just genuinely has bigger problems to distract him. Sometimes, when Harry’s home for the summer, he’ll catch him looking over at him with a wrinkle between his brows. Most of the time it, Harry just glancing at him, feels like agony; but sometimes it feels like hope, and somehow that’s even worse.

There’s a silver mark shaped like a lightning bolt on his wrist. And he’s genuinely not sure if he’d change it, even if he could.


End file.
